Fuller, Steinem and Wollstonecraft on Women's Rights

Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret Fuller, and Gloria Steinem all shared the same basic views on women's rights, despite having written the essays in three different centuries. Nearly every major difference I could find between these essays was directly related to differences in society rather than differences in the authors' opinions. Each essay weighed heavily on the oppression of women and society's superior view of men, and I found it sadly unsurprising that this theme has continued among humans (who consider our race's intelligence to be far superior to that of every other race on the planet, despite this) since the beginning of our existence.

I enjoyed Gloria Steinem's essay on "If Men Could Menstruate." I thought that her description of our society (if men could menstruate) was very clever and accurate. Margaret Fuller wrote about the absurdity of the oppression of women, comparing it to slavery in the quote "As the friend of the negro assumes that one man cannot, by right, hold another in bondage, should the friend of woman assume that man cannot, by right, lay even well-meant restrictions on woman." Mary Wollstonecraft wrote about the absurdity of the laughably weak education women received in her time, claiming that women could live happy, successful lives if only they were given a chance at independence. She also compares women to slaves, "in a political and civil sense," predicting that if women were allowed to "share the advantages of education and government with man," that they would "become better, as they grow wiser and become free."

Each of the three essays was thoughtful and intelligent, leading the reader to question our society's view of the inferiority of women and the frighteningly small difference between that view now and over a century ago.